The Collected Short Stories of Louis L’Amour, Volume 2: Frontier Stories - Chapter 26

Chapter 26 Keep Travelin', Rider When Tack Gentry sighted the weather-beaten buildings of the G Bar, he touched spurs to the buckskin and the horse broke into a fast canter that carried the cowhand down the trail and around into the ranch yard. He swung down. "Hey!" he yelled happily, grinning. "Is that all the welcome I get?" The door pushed open and a man stepped out on the worn porch. The man had a stubble of beard and a drooping mustache. His blue eyes were small and narrow. "Who are yuh?" he demanded. "And what do yuh want?" "I'm Tack Gentry!" Tack said.

"Where's Uncle John?" "I don't know yuh," the man said, "and I never heard of no Uncle John. I reckon yuh got onto the wrong spread, youngster." "Wrong spread?" Tack laughed. "Quit your funnin'! I helped build that house there, and built the corrals by my lonesome, while Uncle John was sick. Where is everybody?" The man looked at him carefully and then lifted his eyes to a point beyond Tack. A voice spoke from behind the cowhand. "Reckon yuh been gone a while, ain't yuh?" Gentry turned. The man behind him was short, stocky, and blond.

He had a wide, flat face, a small broken nose, and cruel eyes. "Gone? I reckon yes! I've been gone most of a year! Went north with a trail herd to Ellsworth, then took me a job as segundo on a herd movin' to Wyoming." Tack stared around, his eyes alert and curious. There was something wrong here, something very wrong. The neatness that had been typical of Uncle John Gentry was gone. The place looked run-down, the porch was untidy, the door hung loose on its hinges, even the horses in the corral were different. "Where's Uncle John?" Tack demanded again.

"Quit stallin'!" The blond man smiled, his lips parting over broken teeth and a hard, cynical light coming into his eyes. "If yuh mean John Gentry, who used to live on this place, he's gone. He drawed on the wrong man and got himself killed." "What?" Tack's stomach felt like he had been kicked. He stood there, staring. "He drew on somebody? Uncle John?" Tack shook his head. "That's impossible! John Gentry was a Quaker. He never lifted a hand in violence against anybody or anything in his life!

He never even wore a gun, never owned one." "I only know what they tell me," the blond man said, "but we got work to do, and I reckon yuh better slope out of here. And," he added grimly, "if yuh're smart yuh'll keep right on goin', clean out of the country!" "What do yuh mean?" Tack's thoughts were in a turmoil, trying to accustom himself to this change, wondering what could have happened, what was behind it. "I mean yuh'll find things considerably changed around here.